MAKING sure you haven’t made a mistake is an admirable quality, but for one woman it turned to obsession.

As Jacqui Vincent-Potter struggled to get to grips with a new job, she took to checking and double-checking her work.

Eventually this behaviour spread to her home life and would go on to cost her a job and her house.

Now, though, she is putting her life back together, with the help of mental health charity Restore.

And she hopes that others who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can find light at the end of the tunnel.

The 55-year-old, of Chipping Norton, said: “I didn’t realise at the time that I was having a breakdown.

“I was worrying about everything. I was making sure, for instance, that I had not left a cigarette in the ashtray, I came home to check it.”

Soon after it was whether she had closed the front door or not.

She added: “It was sheer panic and anxiety. When I was at home I had to make sure everything was right.

“I couldn’t leave anything in the oven for five minutes without checking it.

“It was a total lack of confidence in everything I did. It was the pressure of doing something new. I am not young any more, when you get a bit older it does take a little bit longer to get into
things. It took the wind out of my sails.”